Naruto Fumetsu - Birth of a Legend
by Athanos
Summary: A neglect fic without the neglect. Born five years before the kyuubi attack, how will the presence of an older Naruto affect the fate of the elemental nations? With two loving parents and a younger sister to look after, nothing will stop Naruto in his search for peace.
1. Prologue: Finding Purpose

**Prologue: Finding Purpose**

Memories are fickle things. Often, what we think we remember, and what actually happened do not always align. This is especially true for early memories – typically, it is only after around the age of three that children develop the mental capacity to be able to store memories that can be retrieved well into adulthood. In this regard, Naruto Uzumaki was perhaps unique.

Indeed, the earliest memory that Naruto could recall was from his early infancy, before he had any understanding of the world around him, before he could walk or talk, or do much of anything apart from eat, sleep and cry. This memory was not of the tall blond man who when looking down at him would smile as bright as the sun, the man who he would later learn to be his father, nor was it of the kindly old man who would visit on occasion, always smelling of pipe smoke, wrapped in a cloak of white, the man he affectionately called jiji. No, in fact this memory of his didn't even include the sense of sight for it occurred in that blissful realm of awareness that lies between wakefulness and sleep. All he could remember was an engulfing sense of warmth surrounding his then tiny body, as if to ward away all the dangers of the world, that and the gentle humming of a woman's voice lulling him into slumber, his mother's voice, Kushina Uzumaki.

It's unsurprising then, that as Naruto grew from infant to toddler, he became something of a momma's boy, something that was frequently pointed out to the both of them by amused friends and professional acquaintances, not that it ever seemed to bother either of them. Now at the age of three and able to walk and talk with surprising proficiency, Naruto was perfectly content to remain in the company of his mother alone, not that there was much choice in the matter.

As Naruto began to be taught of the world around him by his mother, of the village of Konoha where he lived, of the shinobi that occupied it, and their duty to protect the village from danger (a simplistic view of the shinobi system perhaps, but one that sufficed to educate a three-year-old), it was inevitable that he would become aware of the ongoing war, the third shinobi war. This, Kushina explained was what caused the absence of his father, Minato, for as a shinobi and a high-ranking one at that, he was constantly sent out on missions with his genin team to protect the village or to secure resources to aid the war effort. Even during the few moments where he remained within the village, he often didn't have time to spend with his wife and son, instead spending hours at one of Konoha's various training grounds developing a technique which he believed could more swiftly draw the war to a close and in doing so, prevent further loss of life.

That is not to say that Minato was completely absent. He still turned up at mealtimes when in the village, and at night he would tuck Naruto into bed before telling him stories of his days as a genin and of his adventures across the elemental nations. These simple moments, snuggled into bed where his father would regale him with stories of defeating villains and rescuing princesses, while his mother standing in the doorway would look on with fond exasperation became some of his most treasured memories.

Yet, as time passed and the war grew in intensity, Minato's appearances at home became increasingly rare. And even if that bothered Naruto, he wouldn't let it show on his face. Though he was sure his Kaa-san had not meant for him to see, occasionally when she thought she had a moment to herself in the house, she would stare into the distance, unknowingly a small frown tugging at her lips. Clearly, she noticed the absence of Minato even more acutely than himself. Naruto never wanted to see that expression on her face, and so in his young mind he decided; if his Tou-san's absence was making his Kaa-san sad, then he'd just have to make her twice as happy all by himself. He'd become her light in the darkness, and in that promise was born something powerful, though no one yet knew it. If the two of them were close before, now they were inseparable. Where one could be found, the other was inevitably in sight.

In spite of his new resolve, a noticeable aura of tension began to settle into the village, perhaps not obvious at a casual glance, but to Naruto who had all the time in the world to simply sit and stare at the world around him outside of his lessons, the changes were glaring. It was there in the darkened eyes of the people he passed on the street when walking about the village with his Kaa-san, bags under their eyes due to a lack of sleep, late nights spent worrying about the fates of their loved ones. It was there in the smiles on their faces as they waved their greetings to the two of them at the park, a tightness at the edges of the mouth, too much to be natural, an act to both themselves and the rest of the world in an attempt to preserve the illusion of normalcy. And if under that illusion, lied fear, doubt and uncertainty about the future, they would not let it show, for Konoha was strong. Two shinobi wars had been fought and won by the great village hidden in the leaves, the second war still in recent memory. This third war would not break them. They would persevere. They _must_ persevere.

These observations gradually began to fade out of Naruto's thoughts though until he approached his fourth birthday and Kushina started to teach him about the source of every shinobi's power. Chakra: the merging of spiritual and physical energies which when naturally combined in the body and then manipulated by the user produces feats that to many appear to be miracles. For what else could one call the ability to defy and bend the laws of reality to your will? Walking upon the surface of water as if it were solid ground, or up the sides of walls, against the pull of gravity, even full control of the elements could be achieved given sufficient talent and practice in the shinobi arts.

Naruto saw all of this first hand. His kaa-san was only too happy to show off to her darling sochi, her mastery of suiton ninjutsu displayed in full, forming walls of water which would surround the two of them before transforming into small animals, foxes, rabbits and dogs which would run around him in circles to his absolute delight, his joy reflected in the face of his mother. She even showed him her chakra chains, which she told him could keep even a bijuu at bay. Not that he fully understood what that meant. To him they were just another thing to add to the list things that made his kaa-san awesome.

Occasionally, his jiji would come around when he had a spare moment away from his duties as the sandaime hokage, although such moments were becoming increasingly rare as the war progressed. Accompanying these visits were always stories of the early days of Konohagakure, and even a few from before the formation of the great shinobi villages during the last days of the warring clans period. These stories were secretly always Naruto's favourites for his jiji would animate small golems of earth to recreate the various battles he took part in or observed. With his mastery of all five primary elements, the golems were even able to produce miniature versions of the various jutsus he'd encountered over the years. It wouldn't be until many years later, that Naruto would come to understand what an extraordinary feat that was. Hiruzen Sarutobi is truly a man worthy of the title 'The Professor'.

Nothing though compared to the moment, Minato in one of the rare moments he had free of shinobi duties showed him his signature jutsu, the rasengan. Such immaculate control over shape transformation, to be able to compress that much chakra into the palm of his hand and keep it from exploding outwards. As Naruto looked upon it for the first time in awe, he couldn't help but think, it looked like his father was holding a miniature blue sun, the light reflecting off his face. The swirling patterns of chakra moving almost at random within the orb, it was _mesmerising_.

* * *

"Can I learn how to make that Tou-san?" Naruto asked, blue eyes wide with wonderment, still staring at the orb of destruction which his father maintained in his palm with what seemed like casual ease.

Hearing this, Minato let out a low chuckle, Kushina giggling from her place sat next to Naruto on the steps of the wooden deck leading to the training grounds behind their house.

"Don't you think you're getting ahead of yourself a bit?" he asked, a smirk resting upon his face. "We haven't even started training you to use chakra yet. You still have a long way to go before you can learn something as advanced as this. After all it took me three years to develop and I've been learning to control my chakra for nearly fifteen years."

' _Hmm'_ Naruto pondered to himself, one hand placed on his chin, staring at the ground, seemingly deep in thought much to the amusement of his parents who couldn't take Naruto seriously with such an adorable expression of concentration on his face. ' _Tou-san may have a point...'_ Naruto drifted back into quiet contemplation.

A few moments later, nodding to himself, Naruto raised his head back up to face his father, a glint in his eyes that caught Minato's attention.

"Then teach me. Teach me how to be a shinobi like you and kaa-san."

Minato paused, dispelling the rasengan, excess chakra dissipating into the air. He gave Naruto a searching look, as if peering into the depths of his soul. Finding something in Naruto's eyes, a spark of resolve perhaps and another purpose hidden within his demand for tutelage, something that maybe Naruto himself didn't realise, his eyes flickered across to Kushina. A subtle nod of her head accompanied by a resigned smile, and Minato finally spoke.

"Are you sure that's what you really want? The life of a shinobi is not easy. It is one of hardship and sacrifice. To be a shinobi is to be a tool of destruction aimed at the enemies of the village. You will have to kill others in the service of Konoha, sometimes even to those who don't deserve it. Knowing that… knowing that the jutsus you've seen me and your kaa-san perform are ultimately used to destroy, do you still want us to teach you?"

Once again, Naruto sank back into deep contemplation, as his parents watched on patiently, both remaining silent. This was an inevitable truth that not many learned before graduating to the rank of genin, though one Naruto would need to confront to determine his path forward. No one could make this decision for him. It was only their job to guide him. Having said that, Kushina felt the need to speak up.

"It isn't all bad you know. True, sometimes you have to do bad things, but you have to remember that it's always to help the village, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time. We do the things we do, so that others don't have to, so that our friends and family can sleep soundly at night, safe from the dangers outside the village."

As she spoke, staring up at the blue sky, arms splayed out behind her on the deck to support her weight, her voice unbeknownst to her grew in intensity from a soft murmur to her usual loudness.

"And besides, for every bad moment, there's a good one. Sometimes you get to guard a princess from assassins, or overthrow some tyrant, terrorising villages on the outskirts of fire country. Watching families be reunited, knowing that their precious people are safe, those moments make it all worth it…" Thinking to herself, Kushina added, "Plus you get to travel a lot. I remember this one town in the land of noodles that does THE best ramen dattebane! Even better than Ichiraku's! Mmmm, I remember they had this ton- "

"Kushina," Minato cut in, stalling her reminiscing. Truly, his wife had an obsession with ramen that he'd never understand. "You're rambling again."

At this, Kushina's face flushed bright red with embarrassment which quickly morphed into a bashful grin. "ehehe, ah I guess I got carried away…"

Trailing off, the three of them fell back into silence though it was only a few moments before Naruto - who had only kept half of his attention on his kaa-san during her monologue, the other half still deep in thought - finally spoke up.

"Hey kaa-san, tou-san… why did you guys become shinobi?"

It wasn't the question either of them had been expecting but it made sense that he would be curious of their motivations. Kushina was the first to speak.

"Ah, well I guess I kinda joined the academy because it was expected of me?" seemingly unsure of her answer. "I'd already learnt a bit about shinobi life back in Uzushio and as an Uzumaki I probably would have ended up as a shinobi there anyway, so when I came to Konoha and Mito-obaasan passed away, I guess it just seemed obvious to enrol in the academy." Here, she paused for a second before her eyes seemed to light up with fire, her hair rising up into the air and an aura of malevolence beginning to encompass her form. "Plus, I had to get strong so I could beat up all the kids who kept making fun of me dattebane!"

…

…

…

Both Naruto and Minato could be seen with sweat-drops upon their foreheads. Minato quickly coughed into his hand, trying to dispel the awkward atmosphere that had descended upon them. Sometimes it was a struggle to deal with his wife's eccentricities, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Oh! And I guess I wanted to be hokage too, so that everyone would have to acknowledge my awesomeness!" Following this exclamation, her bright grin rapidly changed into a pout as another thought popped into her head "But I gave up on that after I realised I'd never beat your tou-san to the hokage hat. He's too talented for his own good so I'll just have to settle for having helped get him there."

Hearing that, Naruto quickly turned to face his father. "You want to be Hokage too tou-san?"

Minato sighed deeply, eyes flickering down for just a moment before he spoke. "Yeah, I do. Although that's not the reason I initially signed up to become a shinobi, it's just a stepping stone towards my ultimate goal."

Naruto couldn't help himself when his eyes widened, and he almost fell over backwards. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his kaa-san giggling to herself at his reaction, hiding her smile behind the back of her right hand.

' _Isn't the hokage the strongest ninja in the village? And tou-san calls it a stepping stone… what goal could there be beyond that?'_ It must be noted that however mature Naruto may be for his age, he was still young, his view of the world limited to his experiences inside the village.

"Then what's your ultimate goal tou-san?" Minato let out a faint smile seeing the poorly hidden curiosity in his son's eyes.

"My ultimate goal, the goal I've been working towards since the age of nine when I first entered the academy, is to bring peace to the elemental nations, to end the cycle of hatred which draws people into conflict with one another; to be able to create a world in which everyone can live without the threat of war and poverty. But I can't do that as just a regular shinobi. That's why I need to be hokage, so I can change the village from within, and then hopefully the rest of the world."

Having said his piece, Minato looked to judge Naruto's reaction. For Naruto's part, he couldn't help but look at his tou-san with admiration bordering on reverence. Even at Naruto's young age, he'd observed the effects of the war on the village. Though many tried to hide it, it was obvious if you knew the signs to look for and Naruto was nothing if not frighteningly intelligent.

The war was taking its toll on the villagers. Most shinobi who fought on the frontlines in the lands bordering earth and lightning country came back either crippled or in sealing scrolls containing their dead bodies. As the war seemed to be reaching its climax, it seemed that not a day went by where you couldn't hear the wails of a grieving parent or spouse. Those who survived such encounters were changed by what they had seen, a darkness within their eyes reflecting their anguish, that and a deep-seated anger at both the enemy shinobi who in their eyes were responsible for their suffering, and at the world itself for allowing the injustice to continue.

There were other signs as well, effects of the war that were less obvious but nonetheless still there to see. Refugees flooded towards Konoha, looking for safety away from the death and destruction erupting at the borders of fire country. Many refugees never even made it, fractured families arriving at the village gates. With shinobi efforts focused on open conflict away from the village or towards securing important resources, the main roads and trade routes within fire country that were typically patrolled by genin and chunin teams, became increasingly vulnerable to bandits who were flourishing in the wartime environment.

Within the village, living conditions were slowly deteriorating. Temporary housing both within and outside of the village walls, quickly erected to accommodate the influx of refugees was leaving the village feeling rather cramped. The increased population only compounded upon the effects of dwindling food supplies as iwa and kumo-nin put a stranglehold on various supply lines entering fire country. It wasn't uncommon to see starving children on the streets begging for food nowadays. Even some of the shinobi clans were beginning to feel the effects: the Akimichi, he'd noticed seemed to be particularly vocal, horrified by their weight-loss. Personally, Naruto thought a few of them could do with losing a few pounds.

Either way, it was a constant reminder to Naruto that he was lucky. He had a home, a loving family, and didn't have to worry about food shortages or absent loved ones. He hadn't personally felt the effects of the war, only seen the effect it had on others, but that was enough. If it was his father's goal to end the suffering, to end all the violence… well, that seemed like a goal worthy of pursuing. It resonated with Naruto in a way he couldn't put into words, and unbeknownst to himself and those around him, it started Naruto on path that would eventually forge him into a legend.

Naruto looked at both of his parents in turn, seeing the determination in his father's eyes, his will to make his dreams of peace into a reality, and the loving pride in his mother's eyes, an assurance that no matter the choice he made, she would support him to the ends of the world. Seeing that, seeing the confidence they held that they'd made the right choice, the lack of regret, how could he make any other choice…

"Teach me."

Minato smiled, and without hesitation responded…

"Okay."

And so, Naruto's training began.


	2. Chapter 1: The First Step

**Chapter 1: The First Step**

Naruto's training in the shinobi arts was initially rather haphazard despite his parents' best efforts. Despite Minato's agreement to teach him, he was constantly out on missions for the village as the war continued to escalate so he rarely had time to directly teach Naruto, though he'd left him some of his notes from the academy, detailing his observations on the various techniques and skills that were taught there. His jiji unfortunately rarely had time to visit now, most of the time stuck in his office planning the war effort with the village higher-ups and delegating missions. Naruto missed the old man, though he understood – to an extent – that as the hokage, he was just too busy right now and that there'd be time for him to visit when the war was over. Hopefully, Naruto thought, that would be sometime soon.

As a result, most of the time, the responsibility of educating Naruto fell to Kushina, not that either of them would ever complain about this arrangement. Despite her initially poor performance in two out of the three shinobi arts taught at the academy, Kushina had since developed into a truly fearsome kunoichi, rivalling some of the elite jounin in the village. And with her chakra chains out, there were few that could stop her, even after the nearly four years of inactivity spent raising Naruto.

With Naruto now old enough to begin training, she'd even taken the time to try and get herself back into shape. Sightings of the eight tails jinchuriki mobilising in the land of hotsprings was a cause for concern. Many of the older generation who now formed the elite rankings amongst the shinobi still remembered the day Madara summoned forth the kyuubi against the shodaime. Even from the valley of the end, the aura of terror that the bijuu induced was almost overwhelming. Then there was the gold and silver brothers of kumo, Kinkaku and Ginkaku. Even with only a sliver of the kyuubi's chakra, they were able to successfully bring the nidaime hokage to the point of death. The bijuu were dangerous, and their jinchuriki only slightly less so. Word had it that the eight tails jinchuriki was capable of fully transforming into the hachibi. In the event that kumo tried to unleash a bijuu in fire country, Kushina would likely be called upon to try and subdue the beast with her chakra chains.

As it was, as Konoha's foremost expert on fuinjutsu, her time was being split between Naruto, her own training, and reinforcing and improving the numerous barrier seals engraved into the towering village walls, designed to repel an invasion force. As a result, her lessons typically consisted of introducing Naruto to a concept, initially having him practice under her supervision so that she could correct any mistakes in form or technique, and then letting him practice by himself while she saw to other matters in the village.

Sometimes she'd leave him little challenges for him to puzzle out in her absence, tasks designed to test his skill and ingenuity, and perhaps more importantly to occupy his time while she was away. This suited Naruto just fine though, he enjoyed the challenge, enjoyed working through a problem, testing different methods, that feeling of ever growing closer to success, each failure only a slight set back on his inevitable path to victory. Not all of his failures were without use either. True, if the objective was to throw five shuriken at a target ten meters away and have all five land in the bullseye, two of the shuriken ricocheting over the target and into the tree behind may seem like a failure at first, but it introduced Naruto to a whole new area of shuriken-jutsu that he'd never considered before. He still wasn't able to reliably reproduce that effect, but it wouldn't stop him from trying. Best of all though was the way his kaa-san's face would light up with pride whenever he'd show her what he'd accomplished for the day, inevitably followed by, "Yosh! My little Naru-chan is a genius just like his mother dattebane!" much to his eternal embarrassment.

Naturally, the first part of Naruto's training was accessing his chakra. Many shinobi tended to mistakenly refer to the process as 'unlocking' one's chakra, a phrase originally coined by a small number of civilian-born chunin instructors at the academy who quite frankly didn't know any better. The implication being that all of a person's chakra is somehow locked away and that there is some external process required to 'open the gates' so to speak. This couldn't be further from the truth. Chakra is always in constant motion, moving throughout the body between regulating nodes called tenketsu, confined to a chakra circulatory system that runs directly alongside the cardiovascular system. To a shinobi, chakra is just as necessary to maintaining life as blood is. This is true even of children who unconsciously move chakra throughout their bodies without ever being aware of it. The first and most vital step towards becoming a shinobi then, is learning to access this system, to take conscious control of one's chakra so that it may be bent to their will.

The sensation of accessing one's chakra for the first time tends to be an experience that is both unique and personal to each individual. In spite of that, within both the civilian and shinobi libraries, several texts exist describing the process from the perspective of their respective authors:

* * *

' _The sensation was as if noticing a limb attached to my body that I had not been able to see or feel, yet it had always been there as a part of me and I needed only to learn to move it."_

– Senju Hiroko

' _\- was during a spar with one of the elders. It was as if an extra sense had been revealed to me, a shroud pulled back from its place hiding the world and I could truly_ _ **see**_ _for the first time.'_

– Yamanaka Kaito

* * *

For Naruto, the experience was so much more than he could have imagined, more than he could ever begin to put into words. As he sat opposite his mother in the training grounds, eyes closed in meditation, searching within himself as she had instructed him to, he noticed it first as a growing warmth in the centre of his chest, that quickly spread to infuse the rest of his body. And then, suddenly and without warning, everything within him just... _shifted_.

It was like a part of himself had been missing and now he was complete. Involuntarily he opened his eyes as all of his senses seemed to expand; colours were more vibrant, both sight and sound received with improved clarity. He could hear the murmuring of a river hidden behind the distant treeline and see individual tree leaves dancing in the wind. Closing his eyes once more and taking a deep breath, he let out a sigh of contentment, a gentle breeze from the east caressing his skin. Everything was just _more._ Was this what everyone experienced?

Beyond that he could finally feel what he could only assume was his chakra. It filled his awareness, an extra sense that had always been there but had yet to be used, like opening his eyes to see the world for the first time having previously only known darkness. There was a subtle realisation in the back of his mind, of the limitless potential that now inhabited his body. No. That had always been there just waiting to be unleashed. He could feel the way it moved throughout his body, dense and unfocused, but undeniably his. With this, he felt like he could do anything. Nothing was impossible anymore.

While he was marvelling at the new-found power that coursed through his body, Kushina watched on carefully observing the shroud of chakra that Naruto was unknowingly producing, whilst using her admittedly underdeveloped sensing abilities to try and spot any inconsistencies within Naruto's chakra. To her knowledge, there'd never been a child born to a jinchuriki before. Who knew what kind of an effect the presence of a bijuu may have on any offspring. Neither herself, Minato or Hiruzen had noticed any adverse effects on Naruto over the past four years but it didn't hurt to check again, better to be safe than sorry.

' _It's dense'_ Kushina thought to herself, eyes widening slightly. ' _Incredibly dense, even for an Uzumaki. He probably has more chakra than most chunin do already. Other than that, it feels normal I suppose. Maybe larger than normal chakra reserves is the only side effect of being in close proximity to the Kyuubi for nine months. Heh, I guess I know what we'll have to work on first!'_ Clearing her thoughts, she focused back on Naruto who still had his eyes closed, and lightly poking him on the forehead to get his attention, spoke up. "So sochi, how do you feel?"

Shaking his head to knock himself out of the trance he'd fallen in to, the blue aura fading from view, he focused back on his kaa-san, his awareness of his chakra fading into the background. Though now that he was conscious of its presence, he had no problems sensing the flow of chakra within himself and would be able to draw it outwards with no issues. Smiling with pride at his success, secure in the knowledge that he'd taken the first step towards his goal, a bright grin stretched across his face.

"I feel great! Like I can take on the whole world!" he responded enthusiastically, his arms thrown up in the air above him.

Seeing this, Kushina couldn't help but laugh, sharing in his joy. She enjoyed watching Naruto just let loose for a change. Sometimes he acted too mature for his age, always so quiet and reserved, ' _much like a younger Minato'_ she mused to herself. Maybe it was partially her fault; he didn't exactly get to hang out with many kids his own age, especially with the war going on. Everyone she knew was too busy to be arranging playdates between their kids. ' _Note to self: bring Naruto with me to the Uchiha compound after the war is over and introduce him to Mikoto's son. ummm... Itachi right? Yeah, that's it! Itachi-kun. I'm sure they'll get along perfectly.'_

Having quickly decided that, she focused back on Naruto, entering her self-dubbed 'Uzumaki-sensei' mode. "Okay then! Let's begin the next step of your training. Like your kaa-san you have enormous chakra reserves for your age which means when you're older you'll probably find spamming high-ranked ninjutsu pretty easy. But, until then, you'll have to work twice as hard to control your chakra compared to everyone else, especially if you want to learn the less chakra-intensive ninjutsu and genjutsu that are taught at the academy. So, before anything else, we're going to have start you on chakra-control exercises beginning with…"

...here she paused, letting the tension build, Naruto leaning forwards in anticipation…

"Tree Climbing!"

...at which point Naruto immediately fell forwards, face faulting in disbelief, before recovering moments later as if nothing had happened.

"ehhhh? Tree climbing?" a look of polite confusion adorning Naruto's face in an attempt to hide his scepticism. "How's that gonna help kaa-san?"

 **-One Month Later-**

As it turned out, the tree climbing his kaa-san had been referencing was very different to the kind he had been imagining. A quick demonstration and one gobsmacked ninja-in-training later, and Naruto began learning to walk up the sides of trees. Tree climbing was an exercise that every shinobi in Konoha was taught at some point or another, both as a chakra control exercise, but also as a means to enable travel along the branches of the trees surrounding the village, allowing Konoha shinobi moving to or from the village to remain unseen.

The technique was more generally referred to in the shinobi library as 'advanced chakra adhesion', an extension of the leaf sticking exercise taught at the academy. Both exercises however are based on the same basic principle: by focusing a fixed amount of chakra to a specific part of the body, any objects that come in to contact with that region will experience an attractive force that causes the two to 'stick' to one another. Too much chakra, and the force instead becomes repulsive, not enough and the adhesion doesn't hold. Tree climbing therefore works to train chakra control in two ways. First it requires one to be able to draw out a constant and exact amount of chakra, without any fluctuations, which would otherwise disturb the process, to stick to the tree in the first place; and in order to actually 'climb' the tree, you need to be able to quickly and reliably increase and decrease the chakra at the bottom of each foot in turn in order to take a step forwards.

A fresh genin will usually take anywhere up to a week to learn how to manipulate their chakra in the specific manner required to successfully complete the exercise, depending on the amount of chakra they possess. For someone of Naruto's reserves, it should have taken considerably longer. Determined to succeed, it took Naruto just a single day.

After that, Naruto's life began to revolve purely around training, day after day spent in the training grounds behind their house. Though he'd learnt tree climbing and could now cling to, and run up solid surfaces without issue, he had by no means mastered the exercise, as Kushina was all too happy to point out while he was celebrating, a small rubber ball bouncing off the back of his head mid-climb, disrupting his concentration and leaving him sprawled back on the ground. As a result, two hours out of every morning were dedicated to making the process second nature. If Kushina wasn't busy with her work as Konoha's resident sealmaster or her own training, then she'd help out by throwing random harmless objects at him or setting up obstacle courses in the trees to get him used to dodging and thinking on his feet.

The rest of the day, Kushina would work with him on the various physical subjects taught at the academy: shurikenjutsu, academy style taijutsu, physical conditioning, trap setting, and the so-called 'academy three' ninjutsu, the kawarimi, henge and bunshin no jutsu. It was hard work and from an outside perspective, it may have looked like he was trying to push himself too hard, but seeing the determination on Naruto's face, and the grin he'd wear at the end of each session, it was clear at least to Kushina that he had no intention of slowing down.

For Naruto's part, he couldn't be enjoying himself more! Every day he could feel himself grow stronger and stronger, more confident in both the skills he was being taught and the path he had perhaps somewhat ignorantly chosen to pursue. Though he was unaware of it, Naruto was blitzing through the academy material at an astonishing rate, the progress he'd managed to achieve in the past month nothing short of phenomenal. The shinobi arts seemed to come almost naturally to him, and with his kaa-san there to correct any potential mistakes, combined with small tips and tricks from her experiences as a jounin, he was able to fully realise his potential.

The real gem though was his father's notes from the academy. If there was ever any doubt that Minato was a genius, those notes proved otherwise. Whilst his kaa-san worked with him on the physical aspects of being a shinobi, Naruto learnt most of the theory from those notes. Generalised tactics and strategy, hand seals and their effect on internal chakra manipulation, genjutsu theory and identification, even Minato's explorations into fuinjutsu and his personal changes to the academy style taijutsu; all of this was covered and more, complete with small diagrams and annotations in Minato's meticulously neat handwriting.

Naruto hadn't yet read through half of these notes, but what he had read seemed to advance him by leaps and bounds. Minato's insights into the material taught at the academy were hardly revolutionary, but to Naruto they may as well have been. For every issue Naruto started to have in his training, a solution or explanation could almost instantly be found in those notes. Everything his father wrote just seemed to _make sense_. It almost felt like cheating to an extent, Naruto had thought to himself one night, though that didn't stop him from continuing to use them…

* * *

A month after Naruto first began his training, and Kushina had finally decided that Naruto had fully mastered tree climbing. His final test: to dodge the disturbingly accurate rubber balls his kaa-san would throw at him for one whole hour without letting any part of his body touch the ground. Even with Kushina restricting herself to roughly genin level speed and strength, it still took every ounce of his focus to succeed and left him completely exhausted afterwards, sweat dripping from his brow, lying on his back staring up at the clouds taking deep gulping breaths.

That being said, he'd now exhausted the exercise as a means to improve his chakra control. It was time to move on to the next exercise: water walking. If tree climbing is a method of utilising advanced chakra adhesion, then water walking is the opposite. Instead of channeling chakra to create a region of attraction, you instead use it to create a region of repulsion, similar to the effect produced when using too much chakra for the tree climbing exercise.

The difficulty of this method is thus twofold: Firstly, while experienced shinobi can use chakra adhesion almost indefinitely, chakra repulsion is significantly more chakra intensive in the sense that the user is essentially forcing chakra outwards to 'push' themselves in the opposite direction. Using chakra repulsion on land for instance, one would find themselves hovering a few inches off the ground, a process which is usually used to enable the high-speed movement of the shunshin. Secondly, as the surface used for water walking is a liquid, the amount of chakra being channeled to the bottom of the feet needs to be adjusted constantly to account for constant motion near the water's surface, especially when using the technique to stand upon the surface of flowing rivers or open sea.

That leads us to Naruto's current location: training ground 33. Though his family's personal training grounds did have a river running through it, it was much harder to learn water walking on a surface that is changing so rapidly, hence Kushina had led him instead to training ground 33 on the outskirts of the village. Notably, it featured a large but shallow lake, ideal for shinobi with a water affinity who were looking to test some ninjutsu, or in the case of someone like Naruto, the perfect location for learning water walking.

It had been hours since his arrival here, he'd guess from the sun's position in the clear blue skies that it was sometime around mid-afternoon. His kaa-san had to leave him some time ago, summoned away to see his jiji about something shinobi related by one of those super cool ninja with the white masks. ' _ANBU',_ the name seemed to spring forwards into his mind, recalling his father's notes. Since then he'd been attempting to walk on the surface of the lake without success. He could stand in place on the lake without issue, could feel his chakra pushing against the water's surface providing a reasonably stable semi-solid platform to stand on. But as soon as he took a step forwards, the shift in angle between his back foot and the surface he was standing on would cause the water to destabilise and he'd lose his concentration, causing him to fall back into the lake, at which point he'd have to pull himself back up on to dry land, thoroughly drenched with water. This was the process that had been repeating itself since midday and Naruto was beginning to get annoyed with the sensation of wet clothes clinging to his skin.

' _Maybe, I'm going about this the wrong way…'_ Naruto thought to himself after yet another unsuccessful attempt; trying to picture the point at which he was failing. ' _When I start to lift my back foot, there's a moment when my chakra doesn't have anything to push off against, so I end up just falling through the water... Maybe if I channel chakra forwards to the balls of my feet as I'm lifting my heel? yeah, that should work right? I guess it's worth a try.'_

Rising to his feet once more, Naruto walked back towards the edge of the lake. Placing one foot on the water's surface, Naruto took a hesitant step forwards, carefully moulding his chakra… and then another step, and another before stopping, wobbling in place for a second, arms waving around by his side before he righted himself. It was unsteady, every step requiring his full concentration, his chakra unused to the way he was manipulating it, but with more practice it would become second nature in no time.

"Yatta! I did it," he exclaimed in a rare fit of childishness. "Nothing can stand in the way of Uzumaki Naru-"

He saw it then out of the corner of his eye for just a split second, a glint of orange, before an invisible wave of pressure knocked him off balance and into the water below...


	3. Chapter 2: Facing Reality

**Chapter 2: Facing Reality**

Naruto slowly pulled himself out of the lake, gasping for breath. Reaching the shoreline he fell on his hands and knees and quickly began coughing up the water that had made its way into his lungs. As he gave himself a moment to recover, his thoughts quickly turned to what he'd seen and felt before he'd been unceremoniously knocked off his feet and into the water.

' _What in Kami's name was that?!'_ Naruto shouted in his head, still feeling slightly dazed by his collision with the surface of the lake, more so confused than actually worried, though that quickly changed. It took only a quick glance upwards to find the source of the disturbance, for in the distance rising up over the treeline, a plume of thick black smoke could be spotted, reaching up towards the previously clear blue sky, a dull orange glow beneath signalling what could only be flames. Naruto's eyes quickly widened in realization, and with that realization came apprehension.

' _An attack? Coming from within_ _the village?'_

A moment of indecision kept him rooted in place, a hundred different thoughts and emotions waging war inside him. What was he supposed to do? His kaa-san was off somewhere in the village and he had no idea when she'd return. Should he wait for her here? But it could be hours before she came back and staying out in the open might not be the best idea. Maybe he should head back home. But if the village was under attack then he might just be heading out of the fire and into the frying pan so to speak.

And then another thought occurred to him, dispelling some of the panic that had begun to set in without him realising it. ' _That explosion must've been huge if I could feel it from here. Everyone in the village must have felt it, and if not then they have to be able to see the smoke. So, if I head towards the smoke, I'm bound to run into some shinobi sent to investigate right? And then they can help me find kaa-san.'_

He stubbornly ignored the small part of himself that said he _wanted_ to run towards the danger. After all, if there were people in trouble, then as a shinobi-in-training, wasn't he supposed to try and help? Otherwise, what was he training for? Even if he couldn't do anything, he had to at least try and do something…

Making up his mind, Naruto leapt to his feet, dashing towards the treeline and up to the highest branch. Moving through the canopy as quickly and stealthily as he was able to, he kept his eyes and ears open for any sudden movements or noises, wary of being suddenly caught off guard.

A minute in to his travel and still constantly alert for danger, so focused was he on maintaining his vigilance that it took him a while to realise that everything had become eerily quiet, the sounds of nature: the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves blowing gently in the wind, all strangely didn't bode well, and unbidden, a sense of unease began to take a hold of him.

As the orange glow of firelight grew visible in the gaps between the trees, Naruto became aware of a smell lingering in the air, growing more and more intense as he approached the flames and whatever had caused the explosion earlier. At first, it smelled almost pleasant, like meat cooking on the grill, like the Akimichi barbeque place he'd visited with his kaa-san not too long ago. But as the scent grew stronger and more of his attention was diverted from his surroundings and towards the aroma that was invading his senses, it seemed to grow an... _acrid_ edge to it burning his nostrils, causing him to almost recoil in disgust. And below all of that, there was something subtle, a smell he recognised but couldn't quite put a name to. It was coppery, metallic, with a hint of sweetness.

So deep in to his contemplation, he didn't notice the moment when the forest ran out and he arrived at the edge of a large clearing. And then he remembered! He'd cut himself, last week sparring with his kaa-san. That scent that he couldn't put a name to, it was the smell of…

...

"…Blood."

And as he finally came out of his stupor, he looked upon Hell for the first time.

* * *

None of his parent's tales from their time as shinobi, nor the knowledge contained within his father's notes, nothing had prepared him for the true realities of the war-torn world he now found himself a part of. This was beyond his worst nightmares, beyond the scope of his imagination, and yet he was transfixed in horror, unable to turn his head away as a truth of the world he had yet to confront revealed itself to him.

Having dropped down to the ground, he found himself standing at the edge of a shallow crater that stretched in front of him, at least a hundred feet across and five feet deep at the centre. Many of the trees that had previously lined the edges of the clearing had been completely blown out of the ground, and those that hadn't were now cracked and fractured, angled away from the source of the blast, their roots partially exposed, as if shying away from the destruction they had witnessed. Strewn haphazardly across the clearing, small fires continued to release thick fumes into the atmosphere, though as he observed more closely, it looked like the flames were starting to die out as they ran out of material to consume.

Neither the fire nor the smoke however could disguise the bodies bare beneath his eyes. Two could be seen to his left at the edges of the clearing just before the tree line, blood pooling on the ground beneath them staining the grass a crimson red, vacant eyes staring off into the distance, never to see again. As his eyes continued to move against his will, capturing every image in fine detail, he could just about make out the symbol of a fan contained within a 4-pointed star, placed on their shoulders, denoting them as members of Konoha' military police force. They however were not the main focus of his attention, his eyes having only strayed to them for a fraction of a second, unable to pull him away from the chaos contained within the crater itself.

Perhaps half a dozen charred and blackened remains could be distinguished from one another, not a single one of them remaining whole. Limbs had been explosively separated from bodies seemingly at random, littering the ground like the work of a vengeful god. He even spotted a severed torso somewhere to his right, flesh and muscle burnt away revealing the rib cage beneath, crushed inwards by a large concussive force. And at the very centre of the crater, where the explosion had been strongest, not even a body remained, just a blackened outline etched into the dirt where a person had once stood.

Naruto couldn't help it when he involuntarily took a step back, eyes wide yet unseeing, a blank expression settling on his face. He now knew; that smell, that had so distracted him as he made his way here, that had initially almost seemed pleasant to him, it was the smell of burning flesh, it was the stench of _Death_ **.** Almost immediately after this thought passed through his mind, he fell to his hands and knees, turning away from the sight that was now seared into his retina and began violently retching, throwing up bile and saliva but little else. He could smell the vomit on his breath, the acidity piercing his nose, and yet anything was better than _that_ smell.

He was shaking then, he realised, shivers racking his body.

He idly noted that he was struggling to breathe as panic began to set in.

He had to get out of this place. This was too much!

He wasn't ready for this…

* * *

His body reacted before the sound of something whistling through the air even registered in his mind. Throwing himself forwards and slightly to his left side, he quickly rolled to his feet and spinning in place, positioned himself unsteadily in the defensive stance of the academy taijutsu style: feet shoulder width apart, one slightly ahead of the other angling his body slightly, both arms up in front of him, elbows tucked close to his sides, palms slightly open ready to counter.

Flickering his eyes down to the ground, a kunai now occupied the space where he had moments before been crouched over. Glancing upwards towards the direction the kunai must have been thrown from, he found the source of his near demise. There, perched upright upon the branch of a partially felled tree, back resting against the tilted trunk, kunai held at the ready in a reverse grip in their left hand was undoubtedly a shinobi. They may not have been dressed like one, in fact Naruto would be hard pressed to tell him apart from any of the refugees that had arrived at the village recently; middle-aged, brown hair, brown eyes, a completely forgettable face, clothes looking like rags. But the way he held himself, the familiarity with which he held the kunai in his hand, it spoke of experience. It was pure instinct alone that had saved him from death just now, and suddenly Naruto knew with absolute certainty, that he was going to die in this place, surrounded by fire and ash.

Silence settled between the two, only interrupted by the gentle crackling of the flames behind him.

"You shouldn't have moved," the man finally spoke after what felt like an eternity but had in fact been only a few seconds. "The blow was not intended to be fatal." His voice, much like his appearance was entirely unremarkable, perhaps with a slight gravelly quality to it, though Naruto noticed none of this, too busy trying not to give in to despair as he faced a seemingly hopeless situation.

"But as it is you had enough skill to dodge my attack, no matter how slow." The man seemed genuinely impressed and maybe a little put out at having missed. It wasn't every day that one witnessed a four-year-old dodge a kunai thrown at their blind spot. That required at least some level of training and a good set of instincts. There was potential there, the man thought to himself, resigning himself to what he was about to do.

"Given time to develop, I have no doubt that you would become yet another talented shinobi sent to fight for your village... and for that reason, I can no longer let you leave this place alive. It's better that I end you now before such an eventuality can come to pass." For just a second, there was a hint of something in his voice that almost sounded regretful, though his face remained carefully devoid of expression. "Take solace in knowing that you will soon be released from a lifetime of suffering in this cruel world."

And before Naruto could think to react, fear gripped his very being pinning him in place. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He was struggling even to think of anything but his inevitable death. Everything was happening too quickly, only minutes ago he'd been learning how to walk on water in training ground 33 but it felt like it had been hours since then, before he'd stepped into this hellish landscape. He hadn't had time to properly process anything since he'd arrived, but as the man began to move, time seemed to slow to a crawl. He felt oddly detached from the situation, like he was stuck in a dream and couldn't wake up. He watched helplessly as the man raised his arm across his chest, before swinging his arm back outwards, saw the moment the kunai left his hand, and began its path through the air towards him.

It was going to pierce him in between the eyes, Naruto noted to himself almost as an afterthought. A quick and merciful death. He probably wouldn't even feel a thing.

As death approached, he closed his eyes, picturing in his mind the loving smile his kaa-san only ever used when around him, and the beaming pride on his tou-san's face when he told him that he too would make it his goal to find peace. Now he'd never get to see either of them again and that dream of his would never become a reality...

' _This is the end...'_

…

…

…

He'd expected to feel something, a pressure on his head perhaps as the knife pierced into his brain. What he hadn't expected was the sharp, ringing sound of metal colliding, a breeze rustling his hair and a low, almost inaudible grunt from somewhere in front of him. Knowing that against all odds, he was somehow alive, he tentatively opened his right eye to see… _'k-kaa-san?'_

It was definitely his kaa-san, he'd recognise that red hair anywhere. Dressed in shinobi attire that she'd started wearing again as she returned to service, blue pants tucked into standard dark grey shinobi sandals, a long-sleeved blue shirt under the standard green vest issued to anyone ranked chunin or higher, hair swaying in the wind, kept out of her eyes by her forehead protector, she looked to Naruto like a vengeful goddess. She was standing on the tree branch that the enemy shinobi had been standing upon earlier. Said shinobi was currently suspended in the air, one of Kushina's chakra chains wrapping around his throat holding him up. As Naruto's eyes flickered down slightly, he noticed another chakra chain piercing the man's torso. That explained the choked grunt he'd heard just now, but what happened to the kunai that should have killed him?

Slowly turning his head, swaying slightly in place, he quickly spotted two new kunai amongst the carnage. Ah, his kaa-san must have deflected the kunai heading towards him with one of her's mid-air. Grimacing he rapidly swung his head back around facing towards the ground. His near-death experience had distracted him so much that for a moment he'd forgotten the sight he'd arrived to in the first place, and now that he was no longer in imminent danger, the vision of destruction surrounding him and _that smell_ were beginning to overwhelm him once more.

He almost didn't notice the thudding sound of a body hitting the ground, but he did notice when his mother was suddenly by his side wrapping her arms around him; stiffening slightly at the contact before relaxing into her frame still shaking. Burying his head into her vest, eyes closed, he inhaled, and the smell of ash and death was replaced instead with the familiar scent of lavender. For the first time since he'd left training ground 33, he felt safe again.

His kaa-san was saying something to him, he absently noted. He could feel the vibrations through her vest, but he couldn't seem to make out the words. He just felt so _tired_ , all the adrenaline that had been coursing through him moments ago, fading away leaving him to crumple to his knees, completely drained of energy, his kaa-san catching him just before he could hit the ground. He'd just rest his eyes for a bit, his kaa-san will keep him safe...

* * *

Naruto awoke slowly, warm light piercing through his eyelids. As his eyes flickered open, the first thing he noticed oddly was the pattern on the ceiling. He recognised it, he was back home in his room, though he couldn't remember how he got here. The second thing he noticed was his kaa-san sleeping in a chair besides the bed he was lying on, head resting upon the palm of her right hand.

"She's been sitting there since she brought you back here yesterday. You gave both of us quite the scare you know." Slowly swivelling his head to the other side of the bed where the soft-speaking voice had come from, he found his father sat on the windowsill, head turning to face him from where he'd been looking out over the village, a smile on his face, tinged with concern and something he couldn't quite decipher. "How are you feeling?"

Naruto wasn't entirely sure how to answer that question. How _did_ he feel? The image of blackened, broken bodies surrounded by fire was still fresh in his mind, as was his near death at the hands of an unknown enemy shinobi. He'd thought he understood war, he'd seen the devastation it wreaked on others in the village, the hardship and anguish it brought, but he'd never truly experienced it for himself, always observing things from the perspective of an outsider. Now that he'd seen a glimpse of the destruction first hand, experienced true despair, knowing that his life had been held in the hands of another, unable to do anything… He felt…

...

"...weak," Naruto admitted to himself, speaking in little more than a whisper. He was no longer looking at his father, instead staring down at his hands, remembering the feeling of powerlessness that had taken hold of him, remembering the overwhelming fear that had paralysed him in place. The only reason he was still alive was due to the timely intervention of his kaa-san. Even a second later and he would now be dead. How could he possibly protect others if he couldn't even protect himself? Not once did the thought occur to Naruto that he was still only four years old and that there was no way that he could possibly be expected to best a full-grown shinobi, especially one that had survived long enough to reach their thirties.

His weakness however was not what dominated his mind, his thoughts instead turning to the war, and more importantly, the goal he'd chosen to work towards. Before he'd started his training, when his tou-san had told him about the realities of shinobi life and shared with him his dream of peace; to end all the conflict in the world had seemed like a goal worthy of pursuit. After all he'd seen the people suffering in the village, and if he could do something to stop that, then why wouldn't he? Only now he realised that he had been too naive, ignorant of the enormity of the task he'd set himself.

What he'd seen in that hellish nightmare yesterday had shaken him. Intellectually, he'd known of course that war involved death and destruction, had seen some of the aftereffects on refugees and returning shinobi, but he never could have imagined that people were capable of inflicting such savage violence upon each other, were willing to go to such lengths to achieve victory. It was horrifying and some part of him, he knew, had been changed by the experience. He'd lost a part of his innocence.

And yet… instead of breaking him as it should have done, would have a thousand other children, he instead found his resolve strengthened by what he had seen. He refused to accept a world where such reckless disregard for life could exist. Where such destruction had become commonplace. So, he'd just have to change it.

He'd thought he had a plan to achieve that. His tou-san wanted to create a world without conflict and had decided that the best way to do that was to become the hokage, to enact change from within the village. So, it made sense in his mind that if he wanted to help, then he would have to become an equally strong shinobi, no easy task to match his father who everyone referred to as a once in a generation prodigy. Now though, he wasn't sure that would be enough…

Minato looked on patiently, not having moved or made a noise from his spot by the window during his son's introspection, realising that Naruto, finally having time to think after his ordeal the day before, was likely experiencing a sudden shift in his world view and that now was not the time for interruptions. War changes people after all, Minato knew that from personal experience. Naruto would share his thoughts eventually if he wanted to.

"Tou-san…" Naruto finally spoke up again pushing himself upright, trying to figure out how to put the thoughts that were plaguing him into words. "That shinobi yesterday, the one that tried to kill me…" here he paused a frown forming on his face as he pictured that moment again in his mind with perfect clarity. "He said something, that I can't stop thinking about... He told me that if I grew up, I'd just become another soldier for the village… and that was why he had to kill me."

Minato continued to wait, sensing that Naruto had something more to say. And sure enough…

"Is that all shinobi are? Soldiers sent out to fight against other soldiers? To destroy and kill, so that others can't destroy and kill them first?" Having said his piece, Naruto looked up at Minato, hands clenched upon his lap, waiting expectantly for an answer, hoping against hope that he was wrong and his tou-san would confirm that shinobi were more than just weapons caught up in an endless cycle of violence.

' _Ah, so that's what's been bothering him. I guess it was only to be expected.'_

Crossing his arms over his chest, Minato looked up in thought for a second, before closing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh.

"Do you remember what I said you when you first asked me and your kaa-san for training?" Minato asked rhetorically. "I told you that the life of a shinobi is one of hardship and sacrifice. In a sense you're right. Fundamentally, shinobi are just tools to be used by the village, weapons aimed at anything the Hokage and the council decide are threats. That might be shinobi from another village encroaching on Konoha's territories, or just an ordinary civilian who happens to own land that Konoha wants access to. Anything that helps further Konoha's interests. The five great nations have been in a constant power struggle for the last 50 years and it likely won't end anytime soon."

They were harsh truths, some that he'd even heard before, but he hadn't really understood them without context, without seeing what shinobi were capable of with his own eyes. Now that he had, a hopeless thought began to surface…

"Then how can there ever be peace so long as shinobi exist?"

For the first time that he could remember, he witnessed his tou-san look genuinely surprised and perhaps a little bit pensive. "Oh? What do you mean?" unmasked curiosity in his voice.

Naruto remained silent for a moment unsure of how to put the various ideas floating around his head into words. He wasn't even sure himself that what he was going to say made any sense. Maybe if he just started speaking, he'd figure it out as he went along.

"I think… that the shinobi system is flawed. In your notes from the academy, it said that Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha created Konoha together to end the war between their clans, and to create a village of peace... where children wouldn't have to die in battle anymore…" he trailed off slowly almost speaking in a whisper. "But in the end, I think it just made things worse. All it did was shift the focus of their hatred from each other to another target: towards all the villages that formed after Konoha did. Nothing really changed, except now if anything, the wars have grown even bigger and even more people are dying."

Staring down at his lap, he didn't notice that as he grew more passionate in his speech, his voice had woken Kushina up from her place in the chair beside him, though she'd yet to say anything or move a muscle, worried that she'd interrupt him, nor did he notice the look of contemplation that his father was giving him, fully focused as he was on only his own thoughts.

"Shinobi kill people because they are told to kill people, because it helps protect the village." As he said this an image of the enemy shinobi that had almost killed him flickered briefly to his mind. "But the people they kill, they have families and friends of their own who suffer because of it. That suffering will eventually turn into hatred and those people will seek out vengeance, and the people they hurt will seek vengeance of their own and so on and so on… an endless cycle of violence with no end..."

Naruto trailed off, by now talking mostly to himself, forgetting for a moment that there were other people in the room with him. He was shaking again, he realised, like he had been the day before, only this time it was not in fear, but instead at the revelation that the path of a shinobi, the path his father had chosen to walk in order to find peace, the path that _he_ had started down, was ultimately a lie.

That was, until he was roused from his introspection by the feeling of arms wrapping around him from behind, pulling him back to rest against a warm body. Tilting his head up, he was surprised to find his kaa-san looking down at him with a soft smile, he hadn't even noticed her move. This wasn't her regular smile though, he thought to himself. That one was so full of endless joy, like everything was right with the world. No this was a sad smile. He never wanted to see his kaa-san sad.

A hand clasping his shoulder drew his attention to his right, where his tou-san now sat perched on the edge of his bed. Giving him a look full of determination, Minato opened his mouth to respond to Naruto.

"Then I guess you and I will just have to change that right?"

"Oi! Don't forget about me." Kushina butted in, pouting at the two of them. "It's not just you two versus the world you know. I'll help you both every step of the way."

Looking up and seeing the expression on his kaa-san's face, the look of confidence that she had in the both of them to do anything they put their minds to, it was almost enough to assuage Naruto's concerns, to reassure him that their task wasn't impossible. But still the question remained...

"...How?" he asked his father.

"If you want to change the world, then you have to start somewhere right? So we'll start here in the village. We can redefine what it means to be a shinobi. Because you're right, The Shodaime failed. Konoha is not the village of peace that he and Madara once envisioned, but that does not mean that we can't make it so." Minato paused a frown on his face, thinking back on Naruto's words for a moment. "And maybe… maybe it's too late for us. For the current generation," he clarified. "Maybe we too have become a part of that cycle of hatred, but that doesn't mean I'll stop striving towards peace. And If I fail as well, then I know I'll be able to count on you to find the right path in my place."

Naruto couldn't help but feel reinvigorated at both his father's words, and the comforting presence of his mother's arms enveloping him, her chin resting atop his head. If his parents could show such faith in him, then he supposed he owed it to himself to keep moving forwards as well, towards that everdistant goal of peace.

Though perhaps, a thought crept into his mind...

 **Not as a shinobi.**


	4. Chapter 3: The Aftermath

**Chapter 3: Aftermath**

376.

That was the number of civilians and Konoha shinobi that died in the attack on the village. 376 lives needlessly lost, Naruto thought to himself. After the serious discussion he'd had with his tou-san on the nature of shinobi, which had resulted in his resolve to search for a different path to peace, he was finally told of what had happened to the village both before and after he had fallen unconscious in that clearing.

It seems that Iwagakure were not satisfied with the current pace of the war and had decided to up the ante so to speak. A force of 500 Iwa shinobi had managed to succeed in entering the land of fire undetected and had made their way to Konoha where they had been ordered to wait outside the village walls. A separate smaller force from Iwa's explosion corps was then sent to infiltrate the village disguised amongst the influx of refugees. A few of these shinobi were to create distractions by targeting key infrastructure within the village, whilst the remaining members would use the distraction to continue to the western wall relatively undetected and bring it down to allow the invasion force to enter.

Naturally the plan failed almost immediately. Unbeknownst to all but the highest echelons of Konoha's military which includes the Hokage, the ANBU and jounin commanders, Minato, Kushina and various select members of the Yamanaka clan, Konoha is at all times surrounded by a detection barrier in the shape of a sphere that encompasses the village, including the area beneath and above the village proper. The barrier, set up by Mito Uzumaki upon her arrival to Konoha some fifty years prior, and operated by members of the appropriately named detection division run by the Yamanaka clan, quantifies and locates any and all chakra that passes through its surface. Any irregularities which may signal the intrusion of enemy shinobi are then investigated by members of the interception division.

So it is unsurprising then that the presence of seven, unknown, elite-jounin-level chakra signatures entering the village through the main gate would not go undetected, no matter how well they had apparently succeeded in convincing the shinobi on guard duty at the village gates that they were mere civilians, seemingly through the use of chakra suppression tags which were later found on their bodies.

In most scenarios, members of the interception division are sufficient to handle any potential intruders, but seven elite jounin level shinobi was far above their ability to subdue alone, and thus warranted the immediate attention of the Hokage, who by complete coincidence, had been in a meeting with Kushina at the time to discuss possible improvements to the defensive barriers surrounding the village. As a result, she was sent to assist the interception division whilst the ANBU notified the Konoha police force and assembled tracking squads.

Three were found within minutes and were captured before they could reach their assigned targets, the academy, intel division, and hospital respectively; only a small amount of property damage left to show for their troubles. The head of the intelligence division, Inoichi Yamanaka having been alerted to the commotion outside was able to extract the plans for the invasion from one of the subdued shinobi, as well as the other locations within the village being targeted.

While a task force was sent to intercept the shinobi heading for the western wall, and another was sent back to inform the Hokage and organise a counteroffensive for the small army lying in wait, the remaining shinobi on hand including Kushina, continued on to intercept the two enemy shinobi left within the village before they could reach their targets: the Konoha police force headquarters and the Hyuuga clan compound. They needn't have bothered.

Members of the Hyuuga clan had spotted the suppressed chakra contained within the man dressed in civilian garb before he could get within a hundred meters of their compound and had eventually disposed of them with a Juken strike to the heart, though not before the Iwa shinobi succeeded in killing four of their number, and destroyed a dozen buildings in the neighbouring residential area as a last act of spite before his death. As for the police force headquarters, the building didn't even get a scratch, the Iwa shinobi never even realising he'd been caught in a genjutsu before he was knocked unconscious and taken in for questioning.

Everything seemed to be going relatively well all things considered, until they spotted the plume of smoke rising in the distance. Kushina noticing the direction the smoke was coming from had immediately dashed off, realising that it wasn't too far from where Naruto had been training, and well, Naruto knew the rest. The bodies he'd found in that clearing had been the remains of the squad sent to intercept the shinobi heading to the wall. In that regard, they'd succeeded however they'd paid the price with their lives, the explosion corps member using a suicide technique to take everyone with him.

After Naruto had fallen unconscious, the army beyond the village walls, waiting for a signal that would never come, and caught out of position in a terrain unfamiliar to them, were defeated relatively quickly by a force led by Fugaku Uchiha. Iwa suffered heavy losses, two Iwa shinobi dying for every one that fell on the side of Konoha. They had been expecting to strike within the village itself, causing chaos and catching Konoha unawares, they had not been expecting to be forced to fight within the forests surrounding the village where they were at a severe disadvantage.

Even after the fighting was over, things hadn't returned to normal within the village. Despite their victory there was a tenseness now that had settled over Konoha and its people, a sense of unease, at how far Iwa had managed to penetrate into fire country. It shouldn't have been possible, and probably meant that Kusagakure had been lost to them without their knowledge, it would have to be retaken at all costs.

To Naruto's knowledge, that was where his tou-san currently was, somewhere in Kusa with his genin team. He'd only been able to spend two days in Konoha before he was sent back out to the field, but Naruto cherished every moment. It felt like he never got to see his tou-san anymore, he thought to himself somewhat wistfully. It's not that he didn't understand. His tou-san was one of Konoha's elite, people were already starting to talk about him as a potential hokage candidate to succeed the Sandaime. But although he knew objectively that his father loved him, sometimes he selfishly wished that he could come home and let others pick up the slack.

The war was taking its toll in more ways than one.

* * *

Naruto had thrown himself back in to his training with a vigor that had caught his mother off-guard. It was reaching the point that she was beginning to worry that something was wrong. Both she and Minato had of course expected that Naruto would experience some change in character after seeing the war first-hand, but she hadn't expected such a drastic shift. He didn't smile as much as he used to, before what she and Minato had started referring to as 'the incident'. Instead he had become more serious. Not a brooding type of serious, like some of the Uchiha she knew, instead just more focused, always appearing deep in thought about something or another, and when he did smile, although his grin could still light up a room, sometimes they looked a little forced, like they were more for her benefit than a genuine product of his own happiness.

' _But then,'_ Kushina thought to herself, ' _I was a lot older than Naruto-kun when I experienced war for the first time, and by then I was already a genin. Is it so surprising that he is more affected by it than I was given his age?'_

Though she kept her thoughts to herself, Naruto's words the other day had affected her more than he knew. When she'd joined the academy, she'd never thought about why she was joining, what it _really_ meant to be a shinobi. She'd joined because her parents, and her parents' parents, and her parents' parent's parents and so on and so on going back hundreds of years, had all been shinobi or at the very least warriors of some sort, shinobi in all but name during the warring states period. She joined because she wanted to follow the path of her ancestors, to make them proud. But now… she wasn't so sure that she'd made the right choice.

Was the path of a shinobi truly the righteous one she believed it to be? She'd thought it honourable to help protect the village. And true she'd had to do some things she didn't agree with, killed some people who didn't deserve it, and let others who did, live, but that had always in her mind been outweighed by the good she did during her career. And yet, the words her son had spoken would not leave her mind.

' _...an endless cycle of violence with no end…'_

That was what Naruto had called the shinobi system. She had to admit, he was probably right. So long as shinobi exist, true peace across the elemental nations will likely be an impossibility, but as callous as it may sound (and it certainly sounded callous even to herself), as selfish as it may be, that knowledge didn't particularly bother her. Sure, peace was a nice ideal, one that she tried to work towards whenever possible, but as long as those few precious to her remained safe and happy, nothing else really mattered. Her family would always be more important to her than the lives of people she'd never met.

It was for this reason that she had decided that she would do anything it took to help Naruto achieve his dream of peace. Slowly the realisation was setting in that Naruto would never truly be happy so long as he knew that others were still suffering. Somehow, he had got it into his mind, that he needed to save the world from itself. That was a heavy burden to bear, so she would do whatever she could to help bear it with him. And if that meant training him to become the strongest person to have ever walked the elemental nations, then she would do so to the best of her abilities. If anyone could do the impossible and save the world, it would be her Naruto-kun!

* * *

Naruto needed to get stronger. Although he'd resolved not to become a shinobi, that didn't mean he could remain weak, quite the opposite. For what he had planned, he would need the strength to protect both himself and everyone around him. He would need to become one of the strongest beings alive, and that meant having the power to match even Kage-level ninja eventually. And so, his training in the shinobi arts continued. After all, there was no law that said a civilian couldn't learn to use chakra, although as the son of two of Konoha's elite it would probably be expected of him to become a shinobi by many. He would just have to disappoint them.

Besides that, there was no way he wasn't learning how to use the mysterious power that flowed through his body. Although, he'd witnessed for himself the destruction that ninjutsu could cause, it was tempered by the memory of dancing creatures made of water and that swirling blue ball of energy, chakra in its purest form. Chakra couldn't just be a tool for destruction, Naruto thought to himself, even if that was how it was treated by everyone else. There had to be something _more,_ and if there was he would find it.

If Naruto had been enthusiastic in his training before, now, though that enthusiasm remained, it was overshadowed by the raw determination to succeed. If he wanted to change the world, he had no choice but to excel at everything and so every day from dawn till dusk he would train himself to the point of exhaustion. It wasn't enough to be good at something anymore, he had to be the best. He couldn't allow himself to freeze up like he had in the face of the Iwa jounin. Never again.

Physical conditioning, taijutsu, shurikenjutsu, ninjutsu, and chakra control. He attacked everything with a relentless energy until he couldn't stand, and his kaa-san would have to carry him inside. But his training wouldn't end there. He spent his evenings reading through the academy notes. Politics, economics, geography, these were all subjects taught at the academy, though he'd previously skipped over them, more interested in chakra theory, genjutsu and fuinjutsu, all subjects that he was eager to begin delving into once more. But, if he was to change the world, he first had to understand how it worked, and so he forced himself to read through both his notes, and some of the various academic texts contained within their library, as dry as they may have been.

Three weeks of this routine had caused Naruto to advance at an astonishing rate. He'd mastered water walking even quicker than he had tree climbing, and had moved on to one of the lesser known chakra exercises, kunai balancing. Apparently after months of attempting it, his kaa-san had given up on it, the exercise requiring a level of chakra control that she would never achieve. The goal was to use chakra repulsion at the very tip of the finger to suspend a kunai point down just above the surface of the skin without letting it pierce. The amount of chakra necessary is both small and exact, requiring chakra to be compressed in to an area the size of a pebble. Needless to say, for people like him and his kaa-san who had huge chakra reserves, if he ever completed the exercise, his chakra control would be as good as it could get, maybe even good enough to learn some basic medical ninjutsu or genjutsu. For now though, he'd had no success.

His progress in the academy-style taijutsu which had initially been quick to improve was now starting to stagnate, though there was little he could do to rectify that. He knew all the stances, could do the katas blindfolded and was comfortable using it in in his extended spars with his kaa-san, but the academy taijutsu was only ever intended to teach the basics: how to properly kick and punch to maximum effect, how to block or throw an opponent without getting injured in the process, and how to wield a kunai in close quarters combat. Apart from that, and a few basic combinations, the academy style was purposefully left incomplete. It was never intended to be the end point for a taijutsu user, the expectation being that each shinobi would develop their own style from experience in the field using the academy style as the foundation, and it showed in his spars.

Even as he grew quicker in his movements, faster to react to an incoming blow, his own strikes landing with more force, it became quickly obvious during his spars with his kaa-san that his attacks were simply too linear, his defence full of gaps that were too exploitable, for him to have any chance of defeating a skilled opponent. And though he was still improving rapidly, learning to adapt to his kaa-san's fighting style each time they sparred, even starting to incorporate some of her movements into his own style in the process, it was too slow going for his liking. If he wanted to progress faster, he'd need to either find a taijutsu specialist to instruct him, or spend time attempting to develop his own taijutsu style.

Similarly, his technique in shurikenjutsu were reaching the point where only experience would lead to significant improvements. He had no problems consistently hitting the bullseye of the target dummies set up in their personal training grounds though his range was limited by his small stature, much to his frustration. In the meantime, his kaa-san had started training him to hit moving targets whilst dodging incoming projectiles through an advanced game of tag, using those dreaded rubber balls instead of kunai or shuriken to hit each other. At least Naruto got to hit back this time, though actually landing a blow was almost an impossible task. Anytime he'd get close, his kaa-san would just increase her speed to dodge it. The only time he'd landed a hit was by repeating a trick he'd done by accident over a month ago, but had since figured out how to reproduce: bouncing a projectile off a second mid-air to alter both of their directions simultaneously. Even then, though his kaa-san had been caught by surprise, it had still only resulted in a glancing blow off her arm, though he'd take what he could get.

The part of his training he found himself growing the most frustrated with however was ninjutsu. The academy three were laughably easy, and frankly not all that useful in a fight against a stronger opponent. The only one of the three that he hadn't got on the first try was the bunshin no jutsu, and that was only because he'd underestimated just how little chakra it used. Luckily two months of chakra control exercises just barely enabled him to use it, though he couldn't imagine a situation where he ever would. It took his kaa-san all of about a second to find the real him amongst his clones. Lacking shadows and having no physical effect on the environment, they were pretty easy to distinguish.

The kawarimi was only slightly less useless. In theory, it was supposed to be a getaway technique that allows a shinobi to escape any danger. In reality, it was just high-speed movement that used chakra to slingshot the user and a nearby object towards and then past each other, switching their positions. The object was then disguised as the shinobi using a weak henge. For this reason, against stronger opponents who could track the movement or see through the henge, the kawarimi was essentially just a waste of chakra. Still, maybe it would save his life one day and that was a good enough reason to try and master it

The most useful technique of the three by far was the henge. A _physical_ transformation that changed the body using chakra. And why weren't more people blown away by that? That was insane! Theoretically, as long as you had enough chakra and good enough concentration, you could transform yourself into anything you could imagine. Turning into another person was just the easiest application, but he'd seen his kaa-san turn herself into something as small as a rock or a kunai. It stands to reason you could turn into something larger as well. Or what about animals? So many things to try out! He suspected that the body manipulation techniques that he'd read the Akimichi clan used was probably some sort of advanced henge. Would it be rude to ask them about it? He'd have to ask his kaa-san.

Still, as useful as the henge was, as much as it excited him to see what chakra could accomplish, none of the three would help keep him alive in a fight against the kind of opponents he expected himself to one day face. When he'd said as much after he'd finished learning how to do the kawarimi and henge without hand seals and had declared the bunshin to be useless, his kaa-san had hinted that she had some other techniques that she might teach him the day after.

Their plans for his training however were put on hold when his father finally returned from Kusa with only two out of three members of his genin squad, and a new moniker, 'The Yellow Flash'.

Two days later, suddenly and without warning, Iwa surrendered, recalling their shinobi back to within the borders of Earth country. The war with the Hidden Rock was over.

* * *

Naruto had never attended a funeral before. To be honest, he wasn't really sure what he was doing there. He'd never met any of his father's students, including the recently deceased Obito Uchiha, but his kaa-san had met him a few times when he was much younger and had wanted to pay her respects as well. And so the three of them had travelled to the memorial stone together, picking up his father's other students along the way, Kakashi Hatake and Rin Nohara.

Looking now upon the name of a person he'd never met, his parents standing to either side of him, and surrounded by various members of the Uchiha clan, all dressed in black, he couldn't help but feel somewhat affected by the sombre mood.

 _Obito Uchiha. Age 13. Genin of Konoha._ Just another casualty of war, a life cut short before their time. At least, from what he'd heard, he died managing to save his teammate's life. As far as deaths go, saving the life of someone precious to you seemed like a pretty good way to go. Not that, that would be of any comfort to his tou-san or his two teammates, all three of them trying to carefully mask their grief, with varying degrees of success. His father was managing best he noted, face carefully kept blank, only the slight tightening of his fists giving away the suppressed guilt he harbored at his inability to keep his students safe.

As he looked up at his tou-san, his thoughts turned to the other news he'd been informed about only yesterday. His tou-san was going to succeed his jiji as the yondaime hokage. That should be a good thing, right? As the Hokage, his tou-san would be able to change Konoha and turn it into the village of peace it should've been from the start. So why did it feel to Naruto like instead of a step forwards, they'd only taken two steps back instead?

The reason his father had been nominated in the first place was due to his actions in Kusa. Supposedly, he'd single handily wiped out a battalion of a thousand Iwa shinobi in under a minute using a technique that Naruto had yet to see. The feat was such that Iwa had instantly withdrawn from the war, unwilling to sustain further heavy losses, and his father had been granted the title of Konoha's Yellow Flash. But those actions had consequences. Although his father had now risen to the position of Hokage, Iwa would never forget his actions. This tentative peace that had emerged between their two villages was one born out of fear, it would not last forever. Someday in the future, that fear would turn into hatred and Iwa would return demanding retribution. To Naruto, it was just further evidence that the path to peace could not be found here within the village as a shinobi.

His time studying though had given him an idea, one he wouldn't be able to act on for many years but nonetheless had taken root within his mind. As people started departing for their homes, having finished paying their respects to Obito's sacrifice, one final thought occurred to him:

' _If I want to start a revolution, I'm going to need allies.'_


	5. Chapter 4: Attention

**Chapter 4: Attention**

Although the war with Iwa was over, it took another month before Kiri finally gave up the fight as well, word slowly reaching them that Konoha had a new Hokage, one that was capable of destroying armies by himself. Even the bloody mist weren't willing to throw themselves against a threat like that. As for Kumo, though they'd withdrawn their troops from the borders of fire country, they had yet to agree to any of the formal treaties sent to them by Konoha. To do so would've been to acknowledge that they were no longer the superior military power, and the Raikage's stubborn pride would never allow that. He'd send his own terms sometime in the future, and then negotiations could properly begin.

For now though, after three years of war, the people of Konoha were finally experiencing a tentative peace. With a new, younger Hokage in power, some even calling him the strongest kage to have ever lived, people were hopeful that this peace would last longer than the one that had followed the second shinobi war. As for Naruto, he couldn't help but think it wouldn't last. The third shinobi war had been particularly bloody, and the resentment the villages held for each other wasn't likely to disappear for a long time to come. Sooner or later, something would spark up another war, it was only a matter of time. He would just have to hope that the peace would last long enough for him to develop the strength necessary to change that.

Not much had changed for Naruto in the past 8 months, except for occasional visits to the Uchiha compound with his kaa-san to see Mikoto oba-san and Itachi. Most of his time was still spent training in the shinobi arts, preparing himself for the future. The only difference was that, where before he'd usually only had his kaa-san there to help teach him, now that the war was over, there were a lot of people that seemed to be interested in seeing what he was capable of. Though his tou-san was usually busy acting in his capacity as Hokage, he'd usually leave a shadow clone behind in the mornings to monitor Naruto's progress and provide instruction where needed. His jiji, now that he had officially retired also liked to come around to talk with his kaa-san and spend time with him, so usually he'd have anywhere between one and three shinobi, two of them Hokages of Konoha, to teach him.

With three of Konoha's strongest shinobi at hand to guide him, his progress truly started skyrocketing. His taijutsu which had felt solid but unrefined had been rapidly developed in spars against three opponents who used drastically different styles. His jiji for instance favoured a more agile style using grapples and throws to knock his opponent off balance, while his tou-san just used his raw speed to maneuver into his opponent's blind spots. As for his kaa-san… well her style would best be described as overwhelming offense, often using her chakra chains to attack from unconventional angles while he was distracted. If Naruto was being honest, there were few things that terrified him more than facing his kaa-san when she stopped holding back. Perhaps unwittingly, as he still spent most of his time with her, his style had started to reflect her's the most closely, though without access to her chakra chains, he couldn't afford to be as suicidally aggressive as she was in her approach.

As for shurikenjutsu, there wasn't much more he could do to improve himself except practice over and over again to reinforce muscle memory and increase the number of shuriken and kunai he could throw at once. He'd started training himself to throw senbon as well for the increased precision, but it was slow going. Senbon were pretty useless unless you aimed for the right spots on the body, usually a tool only used by medics and ANBU, so he was having to look through scrolls on anatomy which his jiji had kindly let him borrow.

That wasn't the only thing his jiji had lent him. After being knocked off his feet for the third time in a row during one of their spars, Naruto had worked up the nerve to ask his jiji if he could train him to use a staff and he'd agreed surprisingly quickly, even letting Naruto use the bo staff he'd trained with as a kid, as a sign of faith in Naruto's abilities. Privately, Naruto suspected that his jiji was just happy to finally have someone to teach his skills to again. He hadn't had much free time as Hokage to take on students, certainly none since the sannin, and from what he'd heard, neither they nor his children had been interested in learning how to use the staff. He would be the first.

He couldn't say he was particularly adept with a staff yet. As with taijutsu he had to learn all the basics first and they were taking longer to get used to than he'd expected, a staff requiring him to move in ways he was completely unfamiliar with. Still, it was something new to learn and if it would help him out in the future, then he resolved himself to master it.

Unfortunately, as most of his time was spent working on the physical aspects of his training, that left less time than he would've liked for the one area of the shinobi arts that he had previously found himself most disappointed with: ninjutsu. As it turns out, outside of the academy three, various elemental ninjutsu and medical techniques, most non-elemental ninjutsu in Konoha belong to its numerous clans and thus are only taught to clan members. The few techniques that this left however, were in Naruto's eyes, incredible.

The first jutsu he'd learned outside of those taught at the academy was naturally the shadow clone jutsu. With his high-chunin to low-jounin level reserves, combined with how vocal he'd been about the uselessness of the normal clone jutsu, it had seemed like the obvious choice to his parents, and he couldn't help but agree. Physical clones that were indistinguishable from the original and could transfer memories? If it wasn't for the high chakra cost and the inability for the clones to take a solid hit, then it'd be the perfect jutsu. As it was, Naruto could only make three to four at a time before he ran the risk of encountering chakra exhaustion but even that was enough to knock hours or days off the time he took to learn something new.

After the shadow clone jutsu was one that was closely related, the shuriken shadow clone jutsu. Invented by his jiji sometime during the second shinobi war, he'd seen him use it to create a thousand shuriken in an instant from a single thrown projectile. Naruto, much to his embarrassment could still only manage about fifty. The concentration required to create and maintain that many projectiles while making sure all of them were still capable of inflicting damage was insane! He'd keep working at it but he might never reach the level of skill his jiji had with this one particular jutsu.

By far the most fun he had though was with the shunshin. Essentially just high-speed movement augmented with chakra, it allows the user to move from point A to point B by creating a flow of chakra beneath their feet to ride upon, using the same basis of chakra repulsion that water walking does. Most shinobi don't bother using it in combat as the high-speed linear movement usually creates a sense of tunnel vision that is hard to overcome. Naruto's father though was particularly skilled in its use and had incorporated it as part of his style before he'd ever developed the Hiraishin. As such, Naruto was determined to do the same, even if it looked like it was going to take him years to train his eyesight up.

To that end he and his tou-san had taken to playing games of 'shunshin tag' throughout their training ground, both to test his speed and endurance, but also to improve his spatial awareness, as if he was not concentrating on his surroundings carefully enough, Naruto would still find himself occasionally body-flickering into trees, much to his tou-san's obvious amusement if his boisterous laughter was anything to go by.

Of course, his training at the hands of three of Konoha's most powerful shinobi would not go unnoticed for long. Word travelled quickly that the son of the Yondaime was being trained by both him and the Sandaime and it didn't take long for people to track them down to one of their frequented training grounds. After a few days of random shinobi interrupting their training, they'd had to start restricting themselves to the grounds behind their house or the private grounds in the Sarutobi clan compound, but by then word had already spread that Konoha had produced yet another prodigy.

* * *

"So, that's little Naruto-kun huh?" Standing in a tree overlooking the clearing below, Minato turned his head to face the owner of the voice, his face breaking out into a soft smile at seeing his mentor standing there besides him.

"Yeah, that's him. It's been a while since you've seen him, right?" Undetectable to almost anyone else that would have been listening in, there was just a touch of disapproval in his voice, though Jiraiya knowing his student better than most was able to pick up on it. Letting out a sigh, he was slow to respond, instead taking a moment to simply observe the spar that was unfolding below them between his old sensei and the young blond-haired boy that looked so much like Minato.

Things seemed to be getting intense down there, as the training staffs both combatants were using came crashing against one another over and over again, almost rhythmically. The kid was clearly inexperienced in its use, his movements a little stiff, but he was putting up a good effort. Jiraiya knew from first-hand experience just how terrifying the old man was with a staff in hand. He still had marks from where Enma had smacked him all those years ago. Personally, he'd never been any good with a staff, preferring to beat people up with his fists. Good on the old man for finally finding someone to pass his teachings on to.

"I wish I could've come back sooner ya know, but the war kept me pretty busy. If anything, I've only got more work to do now that the war is over. I've got to figure out what everyone's now doing hidden behind their borders, and then there's Kumo." He let out another sigh. "That place is like an information black hole. None of my informants have said anything in months so I'm probably gonna have to stop by and try to re-establish contact. Well, that or find the bodies."

Pausing for a moment, a thought popped into his mind, almost causing him to curse at his own forgetfulness. "Oh, and err, congrats on making Hokage," he murmured somewhat sheepishly.

Hearing that, Minato let out an uncharacteristic snort, defusing any tension that may have been present, equal parts incredulous and exasperated. He shouldn't have expected anything else from Jiraiya. Sometimes he could be unbelievably dense. He let out a small chuckle, Jiraiya joining in soon after before they both gradually faded back into an easy-going silence, returning their attentions back to the clearing.

"He's good, really good," Jiraiya whispered to himself. "But don't you think it's a bit early to have started his training?" he spoke up, raising an eyebrow in question.

Minato thought for a moment before speaking. "Maybe," he admitted. "I think if Kushina and I had the option we would have preferred that he wait a few more years, but with the war going on… well he's already seen some of the worst of it, and what he _has_ seen has him fixated on the pursuit of peace. Peace across every nation. He's going to need every bit of training we can give him."

"Ha! Peace across every nation! That's one lofty goal your son has there," Jiraiya exclaimed, a smirk on his face, as he burst out into laughter.

Minato responded with a knowing smirk of his own. "Maybe." Looking on as Naruto engaged the Sandaime once more, he spoke up once more. "But if anyone can do it, then he can."

As he finished speaking, a loud twang could be heard throughout the clearing, causing Jiraiya to lower his eyes back down to the spar below them. Naruto's staff had been knocked clean out of his hands, flipping end on end through the air as the Sandaime brought the other end of his staff around aiming to smack him in the ribs.

* * *

Recovering quickly, Naruto lightly leapt into the air, using his left hand to grip the outstretched pole that was now swinging beneath him. As he held firm on to the wooden training staff, he used the momentum left in its swing to rotate his body until he was facing the ground, bringing his right foot forwards in what would undoubtedly be a strong blow to the old man's head if it landed.

Holding his staff with one hand and raising the other to block Naruto's kick with his forearm, the Sandaime sent a kick aimed at his midsection that Naruto was too slow to dodge, just having enough time to raise an arm across his chest before he was sent tumbling back across the clearing.

Flipping to his feet, using chakra to keep himself from sliding too far, he drew a shuriken from the pouch at his waist, throwing it forwards before quickly going through three hand seals, the single projectile turning into twenty that were sent hurtling at the Sandaime.

Whilst the old man was distracted by the shuriken heading towards him, using his staff to deflect them out of the air with casual ease, Naruto raised his left hand up in front of him, forming a half seal, while his right hand dipped into the pouch at his waist to draw a kunai into a reverse grip. As a single shadow clone appeared besides him in a small puff of smoke, its left hand held in the same identical half seal, kunai gripped tightly in its right, they both flared their chakra for a brief moment before they vanished from sight, leaves blowing in the wind where they'd been standing signifying the use of the shunshin.

Reappearing a fraction of a second later, to either side of the Sandaime, kunais poised to strike, the world seemed to slow to a crawl, Naruto watching his kunai head towards the old man's back, where the liver should be located.

For a moment, he worried that maybe his jiji wouldn't react in time, that his kunai would strike true, before he was swiftly reminded that however old his jiji may be, he was still a former Hokage. Time sped back up and Naruto found himself with his back on the ground, gasping for breath, a puff of smoke to his right, accompanied by disjointed memories signalling the destruction of his clone. He hadn't even seen the old man move.

Lying there on the ground, he took a moment to reflect on his performance, absentmindedly recognising the sound of his staff hitting the ground somewhere out of his sight, signalling the end of their sparring session. That last exchange had lasted only seven seconds.

* * *

Jiraiya remained uncharacteristically silent, his face rearranging itself into a careful look of consideration from the one of abject surprise he'd worn just a moment ago, reviewing what he'd just witnessed.

' _Speed and reaction times far beyond what should be expected of his age, advanced chakra manipulation judging by the grooves on the ground, one handed seals for both the kage bunshin no jutsu and the shunshin. He even shortened the number of hand seals for sensei's technique.'_ Only one word could adequately describe what he'd just seen. _'Incredible.'_

"I take it back," Jiraiya spoke aloud, as he watched his sensei pull the boy to his feet, the two of them heading inside. "He's not just good, he's a genius. How the hell did he learn those one-handed seals? Did you teach him?"

Minato grinned with obvious pride, enjoying hearing Jiraiya sound genuinely shocked for a change. "No, he mostly taught himself, though I prodded him in the right direction a few times. He doesn't really like the idea of using hand seals, says they're too slow and that 'they look stupid'," he spoke with some amusement. It was an idea that closely mirrored Minato's own thoughts actually, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he may have had a hand in planting those ideas in Naruto's head during their spars together.

"He's going to be an amazing shinobi one day. I don't think even Orochimaru was this talented back when we were genin."

"He doesn't want to be a shinobi," Minato interrupted him, waiting for the inevitable reaction. He wasn't disappointed.

"Ehhhhhhh?! What do you mean he doesn't want to be a shinobi?" With what he'd seen, the raw potential that the boy possessed, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that Naruto was born to be a shinobi. And then another thought occurred to him. "Wait, if he doesn't want to be a shinobi then what are you training him for?" Jiraiya asked incredulously.

"I told you that he's made it his goal to pursue peace, right? Well he told me months ago that he believes the shinobi system is broken, that to be a shinobi is to be a part of an endless cycle of hatred. I don't think anyone else in the village has realised yet that Naruto has no intention of being a Konoha shinobi. He has something else planned, though I'm not sure what."

That wasn't strictly true. In fact from the scrolls on village economics and the feudal system that Minato found missing from his study, he could make an educated guess as to what Naruto had in store for the future. But if Naruto was to succeed, then it was better that as few people as possible were made aware of it. Returning his mind to the present, Minato glanced over at Jiraiya who looked to be lost in thought.

For his part, Jiraiya found himself considering what he'd just heard. 'An endless cycle of hatred _.'_ why did those words affect him so much? They reminded him of something.

Slowly, he remembered the words he'd once spoken to a young red-haired boy from Ame who had longed for peace in a war-torn world. ' _When people get hurt, they learn to hate. When people hurt others, they become hated and are racked with guilt...'_

'... _an endless cycle of hatred.'_

He was roused from his musing as Minato continued speaking. "But no matter what path he chooses to follow, he's likely going to face strong opposition, so Kushina and I will do everything we can to make sure he's ready for whatever the world throws at him."

Looking at Minato, hearing the confidence in his tone, the _belief_ that his son could do the impossible, he came to a startling conclusion. "You believe Naruto to be the child of prophecy don't you."

Minato nodded in agreement. "Once upon a time, you told me you thought I was the child of prophecy that would bring peace to the world, and I've been working towards that goal ever since I became a genin. But, the more I think on it, the more I believe Naruto is right, the shinobi system as a whole is flawed. Something needs to change, and I believe Naruto will be the catalyst for that change."

As they both drifted into a contemplative silence, Jiraiya found himself conflicted. Twice now he'd thought he'd found the child of prophecy that the Great Toad Sage spoke of, and twice he had been wrong. The first had been Minato, who had demonstrated a prodigious level of talent at the academy and who he had taken on as his apprentice. He'd been so disappointed when he took Minato with him to Mount Myoboku to see the elder toad and Gamamaru had promptly declared that he was not the one the prophecy spoke of.

That disappointment had lasted until the moment he met Nagato, one of three orphans he found and trained in Ame, and the one who had possessed the purple-ringed eyes that the sage of six paths was said to have used to change the world. He had chosen to place his faith in Nagato, even writing his first book in dedication to his student's search for peace, only to be disappointed yet again when news reached him that all three of the orphans had died sometime after he'd left.

And now, he found himself presented with _another_ prodigy who'd made it their mission to bring peace to the world, one who bore the same name as the main character of his novel. With his record, what were the odds that Minato's son was the actual child of prophecy and not just another dead end? He was getting old damnit! He couldn't keep doing this forever. Plus, he had a spy network to run now. That didn't leave him with much time to go around training kids anyway.

He supposed he'd just have to wait and see how Naruto turned out. There'd be time to talk to the brat later. For now though…

"Here, before I get further distracted," and in saying that, he handed Minato a small scroll held shut by a sealing tag. "My latest intelligence report. Heh, feels kinda weird not handing it to sensei. Guess I'll have to get used to calling you Yondaime-sama from now on!" He finished with a cheeky grin, a hint of mocking sarcasm in his tone offset by the genuine warmth that lay beneath.

"Ah, I guess I did get a little carried away," Minato responded, smiling with his eyes closed as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "How long are you going to be staying in the village sensei?"

"Eh, honestly I just came back to congratulate you on reaching Hokage and to hand over my report. Things are pretty hectic right now, so I oughta be off soon."

"I understand. It's a shame though, I think Kushina was looking forwards to seeing you again…" he trailed off, smirking over at the now suddenly sweating Jiraiya who was remembering the last time he and Kushina had crossed paths. It had ended with him immobilised by chakra chains outside the Konoha hot springs as the various women he'd been*ahem*'collecting research' on, beat him to within an inch of his life. He'd been carefully avoiding her ever since.

"Aha-ha-ha, yeah. Say, where is that lovely wife of yours anyway?" His eyes shifting back and forth across the empty clearing as if the mere mention of her would summon her wrath.

"At the Uchiha compound probably. She's been spending more time with Mikoto again now that she's reaching the end of her pregnancy," Minato mentioned almost casually.

"Ahhh Mikoto, a true beauty that one, with the most amazing pair of… wait. Did you say pregnant?" At Minato's nod, Jiraiya let out a half laugh, half choking sound before briefly descending into hacking coughs. It took him a few moments to recover, all the while Minato looked on with a mischievous smile, chuckling quietly to himself.

"You damned brat! You were waiting to drop that one on me weren't you!" he exclaimed, eyes narrowed in accusation, before his face once more broke into a grin, and he wrapped his arm around Minato's shoulders. "You'll be the death of me one of these days… but it seems congratulations are in order. Again. Ah screw it."

Stepping away from Minato, Jiraiya drew another scroll from his waist before seating himself on the tree branch. Unravelling the scroll before him and channelling a bit of chakra into the sealing array contained within, a small puff of smoke soon dispersed itself to reveal two saucers and a half empty bottle of sake.

"I guess I have time to celebrate before I get back on the road. Come on, let's drink!"

* * *

And so for the first time in five years, master and student sat across from one another and celebrated.

They celebrated the end of the war.

They celebrated Minato's coronation.

But most of all they celebrated the birth of a new life, and the hope for a more bright and peaceful future.


End file.
